


Stars That Fall

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Big Eden (2000)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-22
Updated: 2007-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pike, then and now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars That Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for CL Finn

 

 

Pike's mother dies when he's seven. Cancer, it is, ovarian cancer, but he doesn't find that out until years later. All he knows, at the time, is that she's getting thinner and thinner and that she sleeps a lot. Sometimes, he stands at the foot of her bed, watching her, counting every laboured breath, adding them up inside his head, one by one. Sometimes, once he reaches a thousand, she wakes up and smiles at him, thin-lipped and tired, and then holds out one arm and Pike crawls on to the bed and carefully, so carefully, snuggles up beside her.

"Can you tell me one of the stories, Mom?" he asks, because he loves the stories. 

"Maybe later, honey," she whispers, and kisses the top of his head.

Pike makes two sandwiches every morning. One that he puts in a paper bag (the paper bag he brings home, each day, and sits at the kitchen table smoothing the crumples out of, each evening), and one that goes on a plate, which, with a glass of milk, he leaves by his mom's bed before he walks to school.

And one day, when he gets home from school, the sandwich is still there, and Pike's mom is staring into space, her eyes wide and unblinking, filled with what even a small boy can see is terror, pure and true and absolute. Her breathing is raw and harsh, and he can't keep count, can't keep track, her inhales and exhales blending into one endless, unbearable sound that rattles and echoes around the room. Pike calls 911, because that's what the kids at school say you're supposed to do, in an emergency, and this seems like an emergency. The ambulance takes a long time to arrive, but, when it does, the drivers are nice to him. 

Everyone at the hospital is nice, too. They tell him he's brave, that he'll have to be brave. Pike doesn't feel brave, but he doesn't cry. He doesn't cry.

***

In high school, Pike is tall and awkward, tripping over his large, clumsy feet, looking straight ahead and never acknowledging the laughter that follows him down the halls, ringing in his ears.

He's big enough that the coach forcibly drafts him on to the football team, but he's hopeless at sports, it seems, entirely lacking in grace, it would appear, and spends most of his time on the bench.

Pike feels separate from the world, as if he's not there, almost, as if he only exists somewhere inside his head, far back behind his eyes, watching the world impassively. He carries himself like this, like someone who's just an observer, a non-participant, someone who can't be hurt by what happens around him, what happens to him. 

Sometimes he even believes it.

When he fumbles the ball again during practice, Coach swears under his breath, then yells out loud, calling Pike a moron, and the other boys laugh and snicker, not bothering to hide their derision, but Dean Stewart pats him on the back and says, "Good work, Pike," and Pike burns inside, sharp spike pulsing through him that he tells himself is anger, is humiliation but, somehow, feels more like an edgy, desperate pleasure. 

He doesn't reply, just turns away.

Dean is one of those guys, one of the lucky ones, who's talented at everything, whose touch can make anything come alive with goodness and magic. Pike likes to watch Dean, studying him, wondering what it must be like to be such a person. Dean is friends with everyone, it would seem, the whole school, but he's almost always with Henry, Henry Hart.

Pike sees them together, laughing and smiling, in their own world, Dean's arm thrown over Henry's shoulders, Henry biting his lip and smiling, like he knows a secret.

Henry's always at football practice, sitting in the bleachers, reading or drawing, staring out at the field when the team does sprints. Pike counts his steps, his footfalls, trying hard to focus on not stumbling, but he can't take his eyes off Henry, because Henry, it seems, can't take his eyes off Dean.

And when Pike trips, again, and the coach rolls his eyes and sends him to do stretches on the sideline something inside him tightens, it strengthens, and, in one strange, alien, moment, he stops thinking, stops fighting and is miraculously, blessedly, _present._

So he walks over to the bleachers, his helmet in his hand, knocking against his thigh, leaving a bruise that he won't even notice, and marches right up to stand in front of Henry Hart, like it's nothing, like it's something he does every day.

"Hey," he says.

"Oh, hey," says Henry, quickly closing the sketchbook and placing it next to him, face-down. He looks up at Pike, his face open and inquiring, soft, like someone who can afford to trust in the goodness of the world, someone who hasn't learned that it's easier just to anticipate pain.

"What..." Pike clears his throat. "What're you...?" he gestures at the book.

"Oh..." says Henry. And it's clear that, like always, like every other time, Pike has said the wrong thing, because Henry is starting to blush, shuffling his feet. "It's just for art class," he says, looking down at his knees.

And Pike doesn't know what to say, because, of course, he's messed this up, even this simple thing, just like he's messed up every last thing in his whole stupid messed up life, so he turns and walks back down the stairs, concentrating as hard as he can, because if he falls, here, in this moment, he really won't be able to go on living, he swears he won't.

Pike never graduates from high school, and when he leaves Big Eden he doesn't look back. 

***

Pike's spent so many years on fishing boats, now, that he smells permanently of the sea, of fish and diesel fuel. It's hard, cold, back-breaking work, dangerous, and his hands, the joints in his fingers, never stop aching, not even when he's on shore.

But he makes good money, and it's a life, and he doesn't plan on giving it up any time soon until one night, sitting in the back of his truck drinking a beer, looking up at the sky, he sees a shooting star. Tiny soundless ribbon of light falling and falling, and Pike knows, feels something calling, deep in his bones, in his blood. It's time. 

It's a long drive back, and he doesn't hurry, taking the back roads. One day, driving past yet another farm, he sees a cardboard sign out front, nailed crookedly to a post. PUPPIES, it says, in large, red, shaky letters, FREE, it says, and, on impulse, Pike pulls in.

Frances sleeps, tucked inside his jacket as he drives on through the night. She's warm and soft against his chest, snuffling and snoring like the baby she is when Pike pets her ears, and he almost can't bear, can't contain, the feeling of happiness that wells up inside him. He needs to be somewhere, he needs to get where he's going and get there now, and he doesn't know why, but he keeps driving, keeps moving towards whatever's waiting for him.

And when he finally pulls up outside the general store, it's all so familiar and so raw but maybe, he thinks, that's what home is supposed to feel like. It's been such a long time, he doesn't really know, doesn't understand, but he's tired, he's so very tired. 

He stretches, seized up from long hours in the truck, and carefully lowers Frances to the ground. She trots over to a familiar-looking man in a red cap sitting on the porch. "Well, hey there, little girl," he says, and reaches down to pet her. He smiles at Pike, and Pike nods back.

There's a 'For Sale' sign hanging in the store window, and Pike thinks about practicalities, thinks about the fishing money in his bank account, and, for the first time in what could be years, even, he thinks about his mother. 

Sometimes you have to face things, she told him once, sometimes pain will find you no matter how far you run. Sometimes the best and bravest thing a person can do is just hold still and wait, look life square in the eye and face what's coming, whether it's good or bad. He takes a deep breath.

"Pike, isn't it?" says the man in the red cap, holding out his hand.

"Yes. Yes it is," Pike says, and exhales.

 


End file.
